


lines on a tenth wedding anniversary

by Siria



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-09
Updated: 2009-10-09
Packaged: 2017-10-03 00:14:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They lived in a city where doors could be opened with a thought, where lights could grow brighter with a whim, but John still insisted on being woken every morning by his battered old travel clock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	lines on a tenth wedding anniversary

**Author's Note:**

> For [Cate](http://sheafrotherdon.livejournal.com), who wanted a day in the life. Enormous thanks to [Jenn](http://dogeared.livejournal.com) for all her cheerleading and beta reading.

**1.**

They lived in a city where doors could be opened with a thought, where lights could grow brighter with a whim, but John still insisted on being woken every morning by his battered old travel clock. How such a cheap piece of plastic crap managed to produce such a loud alarm defied Rodney's understanding of basic engineering just as thoroughly as the clock itself had defied all Rodney's attempts to lose it, destroy it, or bribe Teyla to present it to the leaders of M56-PY7 as a highly symbolic and valuable gift.

The clock went off this morning as normal, just after sunrise, and Rodney groaned and buried his aching head underneath his pillow. Muscle memory braced him for John rolling out of bed, tugging on sweat pants and pressing a rough kiss to Rodney's temple before heading out to run around like an idiot with Ronon—but for one morning, at least, John seemed to find the alarm just as annoying as Rodney did. Rodney lifted the pillow off his head and cracked open an eyelid just enough to see wild tufts of silver-and-dark hair appear from beneath the comforter, followed by one hand that flailed wildly at the clock until it stopped.

"Mmprfh?" Rodney asked as John rolled back over towards him and hooked an arm over Rodney's waist.

"No work," John mumbled, "Sleep," which Rodney took to mean that John's hangover was about as bad as Rodney's own.

"Wsfgl," Rodney agreed, letting his head loll forward against John's shoulder, and closed his eyes again.

**2.**

Despite possessing a liver which had just experienced three days' solid celebration, two kids who were only beginning to discover the joys of toddling, and an unwieldy-looking brace on his left knee, Ronon still looked so obnoxiously cheerful when Rodney sat down at the breakfast table that Rodney felt he had no other choice but to open the morning pleasantries with, "Bite me."

Ronon looked up at him and grinned. "Getting old, McKay."

Rodney was working his way up to something suitably cutting in response when John slid into the seat next to him. "Nah, Ronon. McKay's not getting old, he's aging. Like a barrel of good _ruus_ wine."

Rodney groaned around his mouthful of strong black coffee. "Please don't mention alcohol again. Ever."

"You were the one doing shots last night," John said, tearing his _keeven_-berry muffin up into bite-size pieces.

"Ronon is a bad influence," Rodney said, hoping he was the only one who could hear the hint of bluster in his voice.

Ronon chewed on a piece of bacon and looked decidedly unrepentant. John smirked

"And I am not letting the two of you hang out together any more!" Rodney said. "I'll have words with Jennifer."

Ronon stared at him, deadpan, for a long moment, then slowly arched both eyebrows.

"Oh, eat your bacon."

**3.**

"You in the lab today?" Forty-eight years of being able to tie his own shoes, and still John ambled down the hallway away from the mess with his bootlaces trailing loose behind him.

"Yeah." Rodney squinted out of a window that someone had propped open to let in the salt breeze. An almost-clear blue sky, only a scattering of clouds near the horizon; looked like it would be a sunny day.

"Anything cool?"

Rodney made a face. "I wish. Radek gets to spend the day looking at that thing, you know the one, kind of a coppery colour with the spikes—"

"Oh, that brain laser thing? That's awesome."

"No, no, it's not a laser, it's—okay, well, superficially it _does_ have a certain resemblance to a laser, but that's beside the point. The point _is_, Radek gets to play with it while I am flattened beneath a pile of paperwork."

John rubbed a thumb against the grain of stubble on his jaw. "'S'all digital now, buddy. Don't think it can smush you."

"Ha ha," Rodney said. "Don't my sides hurt. Metaphor, simile, comparison—"

"Hyperbole..."

"—_regardless_, I am subject to Woolsey's ceaseless demands for everything in triplicate, Radek gets to do all the cool stuff, and you..." He paused and looked over at John. "What _are_ you going to do today?"

"Eh. Thought I'd work on my back-swing." John mimed a golf swing so wide that it made his hips do something improbable.

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Typical. I do six improbable things before breakfast, and you—"

"It's after breakfast now," John pointed out in his most it-sounds-like-I'm-being-helpful voice.

"My boyfriend, ladies and gentlemen," Rodney said fondly, dryly, though there was no one else around to hear him. "See you for lunch?"

"Mmhmm," John said, pressed a sloppy kiss full of glancing affection to Rodney's cheek and shot him a lopsided salute before sloping off in the direction of the gate room.

**4.**

The thick, syrupy liquid that everyone on Atlantis called coffee now wasn't really coffee at all. Woolsey and John pushing for a more independent, less long-distance supply chain meant that freeze-dried bags of Kona had been replaced by sacks of fresh-ground _kefet_ imported via the Athosians from M5X-983. Didn't quite have the taste that Rodney was used to, but the kick more than made up for it—it had about three times the average caffeine content of Earth coffee, enough that the headaches it induced in the science team after a busy week made Jennifer frown over their medical reports and insist that they find some way of rationing it.

She was cheerfully ignored by all and sundry, of course, and though Rodney had had two cups with breakfast, he still made a bee-line for the three pots which percolated near constantly just inside the door of the computer labs.

"Morning," Radek grunted at him, not looking away from his computer screen.

"Yeah," Rodney said vaguely, and carried the mug of steaming almost-coffee in front of him over to his desk. The one legacy of defeating the Wraith he never thought to account for—paperwork.

**5.**

Rodney absent-mindedly appended his digital signature to the fifth—or was it sixth?—individual form of Woolsey's. Say what you would about the man, he had a certain kind of genius for drafting forms so obtuse and bureaucratic that even someone of Rodney's astounding intelligence could be confused by Part 4-BT—a more primitive, perhaps even Cheney-esque, cast of mind would surely have found some way to use them as instruments of torture.

Most of his attention was taken up with his argument however, the two of them volleying expletives and rebuttals at one another across the length of the lab. Miko, who had had many years to get used to it, sat at her own workstation wearing a pair of thick, padded headphones; some of the Athosian teenagers who were being trained in as lab techs looked a little fearful, though.

"It is completely ridiculous, McKay! Never do you stop to confirm theory with proper testing before you—"

"I do! I demonstrably do, I have many hundreds of hours of experimentation behind me to confirm that I—"

"You know, it is remarkable that someone so obtuse as—"

"Obtuse? I'll have you know, _buster_, that—"

"Buster? So now you threaten me as if in bizarre film noir, and is—"

Rodney paused and held up one finger by way of interjection. "Wait. What were we fighting about again?"

Radek considered for a moment, pushing his glasses back up his nose. "You know, McKay, I cannot remember."

The lab techs looked confused; Miko, however, did not seem very surprised.

**6\. **

_Hey, McKay._

Rodney tapped at his ear piece, keying it in to send audio back to John. "What, John?" he said absently, trying to decide if Question 9 on form 7(b) should be answered _never_ or _only on alternate Tuesdays. _

_Remember that sandwich I lost couple weeks ago?_

Rodney hummed for a moment in thought. "The sort-of turkey one? With the sprouts?"

_Yeah. Found it under my desk._

"Is it gross?"

_Turned blue and purple-ish. It's pretty disgusting. _

"Cool. You going to keep it?"

There was a pause while John considered. _Nah. I'll probably get Lorne to take care of it._

"Okay. Still on for lunch?"

_Yeah. Ronon says they've got meatloaf today. See you later. _

"Mmhmm," Rodney said, and signed off, and didn't realise he was smiling at nothing for four or five minutes.

**7.**

Midway through the morning, Rodney stopped for elevenses—his cheeks bulged with _nimma_ fruit while he worked on his downtime project, souping up his RC car to make it run that little bit faster. Recent adjustments had resulted in a small but significant increase in speed, and if he could just manage to refine the power delivery system that little bit more, it might—

"He will disqualify you for cheating, you know," Radek said when he walked past, holding what looked suspiciously like an over-sized Allen key.

"Will not," Rodney said, peering down at the insides of his disembowelled car. "A naquadah-enhanced power pack is simply a, a..."

"Way for you to cheat?"

"What John doesn't know won't hurt him," Rodney said, tightening one tiny screw just a little. Much better.

"When the Colonel does find out, he will hurt _you_."

"Pfft," Rodney scoffed. "Please don't map your relationship insecurities onto mine. Just because yours is so, so _juvenile_ as to put emphasis onto something as simple as a—"

"Ah yes," Radek said dryly, "this is why _I_ am the one who had noodle fight in the mess hall with my wife."

"Shut up," Rodney said, and bent back over his work.

**8.**

"Uncle Mer?"

"I thought," Rodney said without looking up, busily checking off boxes at random on the remaining forms because right now, he was beyond caring about what kind of anthropological impact he, as a scientist, thought might occur in a galaxy with a greatly diminished Wraith threat, "that we had a discussion about how only Madison was allowed to call me that."

Torren gave one of the gusty, pre-teen sighs that Rodney was becoming all too familiar with, before hooking a nearby chair with one ankle and sitting down beside him. "O_kay_, Uncle _Rod_ney."

"Better," Rodney said, managing not to roll his eyes because hello, he'd learned _that_ much self-control from watching Teyla over the past decade or so. "What's up?"

"Dr Simpson gave me this math homework, and it's impossible."

Rodney looked down at Torren. "What am I going to say to you?"

Torren sighed again, imbuing the sound with all the ennui of which a twelve-year-old was capable. "No such thing as impossible math."

"Thank you," Rodney said, swivelling to face him. "There are, of course, impossible people, but that's a subject to be covered by someone with a little more patience than I have." He snapped his fingers at Torren. "Now come on, show me these _impossible_ things, I haven't got all day."

"_Algebra_," Torren said, voice filled with as much loathing as Rodney had ever heard in Teyla's voice when she was talking about the Wraith, and dropped his workbook on the table. "It's _useless_."

"Oh, young man," Rodney said, "we are going to have fun," and the two heads bent together, black and brown, over the workbook until past noon.

**9.**

"Oh my god. I'm finished, I'm done, I am never looking at another form again, I abjure them, never again will I—"

"McKay," Radek said, far too calmly, "check your email."

Rodney pulled up his email client. "_Seventeen_? Son of a—"

"Mama said she'd make you go through Keret Nim if you said bad words in front of me again," Torren said. He'd finished his math homework and was sitting on the floor beside Rodney's desk, looking enthralled with one of the trashy—yet, Rodney was forced to admit, _awesome_—comics that Ronon had brought back with him from Csition.

Rodney rolled his eyes. "See, I don't know why she thinks that's so intimidating. I've spoken with Halling and Maeta _and_ Jinto, and they've all assured me that there is absolutely no Athosian ceremony where miscreants are beaten with sticks."

Torren looked up and favoured him with a sunny grin. "Mama says every tradition starts somewhere."

"You are so your mother's son," Rodney sighed.

**10.**

"Meatloaf," Rodney said happily, digging into the mound of food on his plate. It never tasted quite the same without dollops of ketchup—Rodney's tastebuds had been trained early and thoroughly by Evelyn McKay's concept of home-cooking—as far as Rodney was concerned, there was no such thing as bad meatloaf.

"'S'good," Ronon agreed. He had a forkful of meatloaf in one hand, and was coaxing his daughter into accepting her bottle of milk with the other.

"I missed food," Rodney said.

John scrunched up his nose at him. "Didn't you have breakfast this morning?"

"I had _coffee_ this morning, which admittedly is one of the major nutrition groups but doesn't really count as _food_, not in the strict sense and since you were there for the whole, whole..."

"Thing?" John supplied, quirking an eyebrow in a manner that told Rodney he also remembered pretty clearly what it had been like to watch that last great explosion in the sky, to hear Ronon cheer himself hoarse, and to end up so drunk that grabbing John's ass in front of Woolsey had seemed like a really wise idea.

"That," Rodney said, waving his fork around. "So I haven't had anything that wasn't liquid in far too long, and really, god, just..."

"Meatloaf?"

"Meatloaf," Rodney agreed.

There was silence for a moment, while Rodney and Ronon competed in who could shovel down their food more quickly, John chewed on his turkey sandwich and baby Ara played at counting the arrows in the tattoo on her father's arm. Swallowing down his last mouthful of food, Rodney nodded at Ara's bottle and said to Ronon, "Shouldn't you have heated that beforehand?"

"Nah," Ronon shrugged. "Still warm. Jennifer just expressed it."

"Oh my god," John said faintly, turning pale. "Can we not—can we please not—"

"They're just breasts, Sheppard," Ronon said, sounding distinctly unimpressed. Rodney snickered.

**11.**

"It's your turn to do the laundry," Rodney reminded John on their way out of the mess.

"I did the laundry last time," John whined, and Rodney had to take a deep breath and remind himself that he really quite liked John, and that John was a grown man who would eventually accept the efficacy of actually, from time to time, moving the mound which accumulated in the corner of their quarters.

"Yes," Rodney said, "but that was five weeks ago, and I am rapidly running out of clean underwear. This is a situation which cannot be allowed to continue."

John cocked his head to one side and looked contemplative—an expression which was, Rodney had to admit, easier for him to achieve now that he was wearing glasses and his still-thick hair had finally started to show some grey (Rodney wasn't bitter, he wasn't). "I dunno. I'm not wearing any underwear right now, and I feel okay."

Rodney gaped at him, then shot a quick glance up and down the luckily-quiet hallway before he slapped John on the arm hard enough to make him yelp and hissed, "You can't just _say_ that!"

"That's funny," John said, "because I think I just did." And then he, he did something, shifted his weight from one leg to another and oh yes, Rodney knew it was all supposed to seem very innocuous, but if you knew about the whole underwear-lacking situation then it drew the attention to certain things and caused distraction and Rodney's boyfriend was the most ridiculous thing on two legs.

"You," Rodney said, raising one finger in outraged exclamation, "are a big derailer. Derailing things!"

"Don't know what you're talking about," John said before leaning in and kissing Rodney briefly, but in such a deliberately filthy manner that by the time he pulled away, Rodney was pink-cheeked and not quite capable of remembering what they'd been arguing about before. "Gonna go get in some target practice with Mehra and Lorne. See you tonight."

It took Rodney a few moments of working his jaw before he got the power of speech back. "Tongue derailer!" he yelled after John's retreating form, then walked right into someone when he turned to head back towards the lab.

"Ah." Rodney tilted his chin upwards instinctively; a little awkward. "Mr Woolsey. Good afternoon."

**12.**

"I am only saying, McKay, that if I were you I would not want to check my email just now," Radek said.

"_Thirty-nine?"_

"I told you."

Out of some impulse of sheer masochism, Rodney clicked on the first one. "A form to review my opinions about Form J37? Which one was that, the one about chain of command procedure or the one about Satedan tadpoles?"

"Breathe, McKay. If you have an apoplexy, I am not giving you mouth to mouth."

At her work station, Miko rolled her eyes.

**13.**

"Rodney?"

"Yes, Teyla?"

"May I help you at all?" Even without opening his eyes, Rodney could tell that she was smiling—there was a rich, vibrato undercurrent of amusement to her voice.

"I'm good," Rodney said.

There was a rustle of skirts as Teyla settled herself down beside him. "I merely ask," she said, "because you are lying on your back on the floor."

"Yes?"

"In the gym."

"Uh. Yes?"

"And there is nothing the matter?"

Rodney lifted one hand off the floor and flapped it aimlessly for a moment before letting it fall back to his side. "Eh," he said. "You know." He cracked open one eye and looked up at Teyla. The light flooding in through the window behind her made Teyla seem lit up, turning her hair into a blaze of copper almost as warm as her smile.

"As I have often had to tell both Torren and John: no, I do not unless you tell me."

"Stop with the reason, Teyla."

Teyla reached out and patted him gently on the back of the hand. "I'm a mother, Rodney—I'm afraid I cannot."

"Har har."

He fidgeted for a moment, but then blurted out, "I think I'm just... I don't know if it's boredom, precisely? But we're closer now than we've ever been to wiping out the Wraith entirely, and we're finally sure—well, pretty sure—that we've cleared out the last of the Ancients' surprises from the city, and instead of giving me more free time to do all the stuff I've spent years and years wishing I could do? I'm still stuck at a computer doing _paperwork_ and supervising the marginally competent and stopping John from doing ill-advised things while commando and all the times I let myself think ahead I never thought that this was where I'd end up."

He took a deep breath when he'd done and let himself meet Teyla's eyes. There was still amusement there, but also empathy. "I believe John would phrase it: 'Welcome to being a leader, McKay.'"

Rodney snorted and pulled himself up into a seated position. "Leader in the field of intergalactic physics, perhaps—not that anyone knows it, what with the whole 'no, you still can't publish _anything_' BS—but I think that if anyone is—"

Teyla arched both eyebrows at him. "I did not choose to become a leader of my people, but circumstances dictated otherwise. It would be facetious to claim that the years have not gifted me with a degree of influence over the Athosians, though I now spend most of my time here."

"I fail to see the comparison."

"How many inhabitants of the city were here before you?"

"Well, technically John. And Elizabeth. And Sumner. And—"

"How many who live here now can truly remember a city without you, Rodney?"

Rodney paused and thought. "Huh."

"For Torren—as it has been for Jinto and Madison, and will be for Ara and Rakai—there is no Atlantis he can conceive of that does not have his Uncle Rodney there to make sure things will be okay." Teyla's mouth quirked into a smile. "And to check his progress in math."

"I hadn't thought about it like that."

"These things never turn out as we think they will," Teyla said, and for the first time Rodney noticed that she had fine lines around her eyes when she smiled. "And even if things are not always as we _wish_—"

"Tadpole forms," Rodney muttered.

"—that does not mean that they do not have their compensations."

Rodney thought about that for a moment. He probably was never going to have a chance to write up that list of journal articles he'd been toying with for a decade or more—but maybe winning the Nobel or appearing on cable news shows to discuss his brilliance didn't have the charms it once did. Maybe it might be nice to take a break from research for just a little while, to not feel like he had to rush to _do_ stuff just because.

Though that didn't mean he was any more reconciled to the paperwork part of things.

"I do not say this often," Rodney said, "but... you may be right."

"Thank you, Rodney," Teyla said, and let him lean in to rest his forehead against hers in a gesture which had become oddly comforting to him over the years, familiar in ways he had never looked for.

"Can you believe Jinto's going to be a dad in five months?" Rodney said when he pulled back.

"It makes me feel quite aged," Teyla admitted with a grin as close to sheepish as Rodney had ever seen on her face.

"Preach it," Rodney said, and tried not to grimace at how his back cracked when he stood up.

**14.**

Mid-afternoon, Rodney was just starting to think about a snack—Teyla might be lethal in the kitchen, but Jeannie had shown Kanaan how to make some pretty decent brownies, and there was often a pan or two of them hidden somewhere in the mess kitchen—when the ground shook slightly beneath his feet and monitors all over the lab started to flash diagrams of the south pier covered with amber and yellow warning signs.

Radek said something rude in Czech while Rodney hustled over to one of the main consoles and started to call up reports.

_Gateroom to McKay_, came Amelia's voice over the comms. _We're reading a—_

"Yes, yes," Rodney snapped, "I felt it too, I'm on it."

"Do you think it was—" Miko started to ask.

Rodney snorted. "Who else would be carrying out _terrifyingly incompetent_ test detonations off the south pier?"

"This is why I am not so fond of the U.S. military."

"'It mightn't be such a bad idea to promote her, Rodney,'" Rodney said snidely. "'Making her _Major_ Cadman might be a settling influence, Rodney.' My lily-white Canadian ass."

"Please do not reference your ass in the workplace," Radek said. "It is not long since lunch."

"Whatever," Rodney said. "You'd just better hope this doesn't attract any more of those giant alien squid—you remember what the last time was like."

It saddened Rodney that his life had been such that he had had occasion to learn what the Czech word for 'tentacle' was.

**15.**

"Please!" Rodney said. "You're a doctor, you can do this sort of thing."

_I can, but I won't_, Jennifer said. In the background, Rodney could hear the faint beeping of infirmary equipment and what sounded like Marie's laughter.

"I have had a trying day!" Rodney said. "Giant squid!"

_Yes_, Jennifer said wryly. _I know. My husband was very excited. _

"All while dealing with the after-effects of a hangover."

_I'm still not giving you prescription migraine medication, Rodney._

"It could be medically mandated! This is what you have a degree for, to give out the good stuff!"

_I have eighteen-month-old twins. You honestly think this is going to work on me?_

"I think that comparatively speaking—"

_You know, Jeannie and Teyla are on the next floor up from me right now. I could go ask them what they think of your opinions on how easy motherhood is?_

"Actually, you know what, that's fine, Ibuprofen is great, McKay out."

He pretended that Jennifer hadn't actually been laughing at him.

**16.**

_Hey, Rodney, so here's my question—_

Rodney poured himself another cup of coffee and sighed gustily before tapping his earpiece. "Yes?"

_So if Alfred was killed off in the comic books before the show premiered in '66, but the producers decided to make him a regular in the series so the_ comic book _guys decided to write him back into the comic books, too—is that like, quantum or something?_

"I am going to ignore your egregious misuse of the concept of quantum anything and simply ask, on a scale of one to ten, how bored are you right now?"

_I'm really pretty bored._

"A fifty foot long alien squid exploded outside your office window not half an hour ago, and you're bored enough to be asking me pointless hypothetical questions about _Batman_?"

_Batman is never pointless. He is the_ Dark Knight,_ Rodney._

Rodney had to concede that one. "Fair enough, but that doesn't negate the point of your inexplicably short attention span. Shouldn't you be out, you know, supervising clean-up efforts or something?"

_Nah. Sent Lorne out to do it. He wants to sketch it first. Something about anatomy. I don't know—wasn't listening._

Rodney grinned. "To paraphrase an old advert: this is not your father's Air Force."

John snorted. "Amen to that."

**17.**

About four, Rodney had a burst of inspiration. He closed the idiotic forms on his desktop—seriously, in pdf format? What were these people thinking—and ignored the smell of calamari wafting in through the open window, digging out a pad of yellow legal paper from his desk. He wrote a theorem out long-hand, covering two full pages in math so neat and elegant that he kind of impressed himself. It was part of the beginning of a proposition for how to recharge a ZPM, and Rodney thought he could see the line of thought he'd have to follow. Couple of years ago, he'd have pulled an all-nighter trying to get as much done as possible as quickly as possible—but John was waiting back in their quarters, probably adding to that festering pile of laundry. The socks alone...

"You are leaving work early, McKay?"

"Yes," Rodney said, as he powered down the third of his five laptops. He'd leave some of his simulations running on the supercomputers, but the rest of it wasn't so important. "Yes, I am."

"You will forgive me for pointing out, but you don't leave work early."

"I have been known to—"

"No," Miko piped up, "you have not."

"Whatever."

**18.**

"We do not run in the hallways!" Rodney yelled after Torren. "No running! I mean it, I'll tell your mother! No—no, not on the _stairs_!"

It was probably a good idea he'd never had any biological kids. Between Torren and Maddy and all the other kids who'd come to think of Atlantis as their birthright over the past few years, Rodney thought that angina had never been a more likely medical probability for him.

**19.**

_Rodney. I think that turkey sandwich from lunch is repeating on me._

Rodney paused in the line in the mess, then turned to glare at the Marine who'd bumped into him. He tapped at his comm. "Do you have some kind of sixth sense? Do you deliberately wait until I'm deciding what to have for dinner before you grace me with news of your bodily functions?"

_Anyone ever told you you're a little paranoid?_

"Aren't we charming?"

_Yup._

Rodney put two steaming bowls of tuttle root stew on his tray, along with half a dozen bread rolls and some _erthahn_ fruit—tart and crisp as green apples, though a little chewier. "How did I ever get through life before I had you around to provide me with updates on your gastrointestinal functions?"

_With great difficulty?_

"Uh huh," Rodney says, "sure," and stepped back a little to let Ronon—one child tucked under each arm like a football—get past. "My life was a sad tale of woe."

_Just don't let your past overwhelm you, buddy._

**20.**

Rodney let himself into their quarters and set the tray of food on the table before walking over to the couch. John was sprawled there, one leg hanging off onto the floor, tongue sticking out of one corner of his mouth and the controller for the games console resting on his belly while on the projector screen, something that looked like a multicoloured chimpanzee was bouncing across clouds in a way that just didn't seem to be congruent with the laws of physics. Rodney nudged John with his foot. "Hi, honey, I'm home."

"Hey," John said, hitting the pause button and sitting up. "The hunter-gatherer returns, huh?"

"Cute," Rodney said. "This is the thanks I get for slaving over a hot stove?"

They sat down at the table to eat, and Rodney tried not to sigh at the way John almost instantly got gravy on his chin. "You have a... thing," he said, gesturing at John's face.

"I have a... oh!" John rubbed at the gravy, then licked his thumb clean.

"Disgusting," Rodney said sadly.

"I know where you keep your Dorito stash. That's not hygienic."

Rodney shrugged. Fair point.

"You going back to the lab this evening?" John asked as he soaked up some of the gravy with a piece of bread.

Rodney shook his head, digging through his bowl to make sure he hadn't missed any other chunks of spiced tuttle root. "Nah. Thought I'd stay home this evening."

John looked surprised for an instant, but then his eyes narrowed. "This isn't some kind of attempt to make me do the laundry, is it? Because it's your turn to do it, and no way in hell I'm touching those boxers you wore on Jsonon."

"Oh ye of little faith," Rodney said, lifting his chin up just a little. "Is it so surprising that I might just want to spend an evening not doing anything much? Even I am capable of taking a vacation every now and then. You know. With you."

"Are we talking about surprising based on past precedent?" John asked. "Because in that case—"

"Har har," Rodney said. "Do you want me to go back to the lab? Because I can go back to the lab."

"Nah," John said, and there was that lazy grin that had first made Rodney lean in to kiss him ten years ago, the one that still had the power to make his stomach clench and his skin prickle with heat. "I'm sure we can think of something for you do, buddy."

Rodney squinted at him. "That had better be innuendo for sex."

"Pretty sure it is, yeah," John said.

"We can reheat the stew, right?"

"Think so."

Then Rodney was standing, and John was standing too, and Rodney's hands curled around John's biceps, feeling work-worn cotton and still-strong muscles beneath his palms. John's mouth was hot and insistent against his, his stubble a crisp rasp against Rodney's lips.

"Couch?" John asked, palming Rodney's hardening cock through his BDUs. "Closer."

"Bed," Rodney said, sticking one hand down the back of John's trousers and enjoying how that made him squeak. "Better with my back."

And also better for afterwards, later, when Rodney's breathing was slowing once more and John was untangling the blankets from around their feet. John tugged the covers up around them and slung an arm over Rodney's waist so that Rodney was surrounded in warmth and John and contentment. "If you even think about a Dutch oven," Rodney mumbled, his face pressed against John's shoulder, because he hadn't forgotten that earlier conversation, and John frequently did display the sensibilities of an over-grown pre-teen.

"Shut up, McKay," John said, pressing a kiss to his temple. And Rodney did, closed his eyes and slept, because if there was one lesson he'd been happy to learn since he'd taken that biggest gamble and come to Atlantis, it was this—that there'd always be someone there when he woke up; that it was okay to trust in the day after.


End file.
